Great British Sport

It seems our TVs have become a constant rerun of extremely similar shows, if not in content then
definitely in format. From The X Factor; Strictly Come Dancing to The
Apprentice - and coming soon there's even going to be a pottery-off starting on
BBC2! "And what's the problem?" I hear you ask. "What does
this have to do with the wealth of health and fitness content we expect to see
on Bear Fitness?" Well let me explain.

What an individual does
on their down time is entirely up to them, and taking the time to rest and
relax is extremely important, even if that involves the TV for a brief stint in
the evening - even I indulge every so often! What I find to be the problem,
though, is the constant stream of shows that do the opposite of encouraging a
healthy lifestyle, or even just a positive outlook on life, in the people
they're entertaining. For example, The X Factor: if you're relatively good
looking and have an average singing voice (and a good ol' sob-story won't
hurt either!) then congratulations, you're in! It's
not about actually being the best in the field; it's (s)he who shouts loudest -
and behaves most outrageously - wins. The Great British Bake Off: now of course
you do need to be able to cook on this show, but you're given plenty of time to
practice your dish, you know how long you have to make the said dish, you're
given the ingredients to make your ‘show stopper’ and you're even allowed to
bring your own equipment to assemble it - and then you're judged. Is that
really it?

At the same time as all this exciting TV takes
up the bulk of airtime - and hours of ours - the Rugby World Cup is being
played in our green and pleasant land. You would have to be extremely
uninterested (or living under a rock!) not to know that England have been
knocked out of the World Cup and that we didn’t make it out of the pool stages. There
is now no Northern Hemisphere team in the entire competition, which I think is
frankly not good enough: yes, the teams all tried extremely hard and there was
some fantastic rugby on show and it has been a good tournament, but yet again
we haven’t shown ourselves to be a sporting powerhouse that we should
be. I believe there is a lot of talent in all the Northern Hemisphere teams
and that some of the losses have been down to poor judgement and/or refereeing,
but the question I ended up asking myself last night was: Is our constant
defeat in sport due to the lack of importance is has within our life and
society? I really do hope this isn’t the case and that the love of all
things sporting is being and always will be instilled into adults and children
alike. But if our TVs, mobiles, iPads, friends, colleagues, schools etc. are
all regurgitating the same message - i.e. that average is good enough - then
how are we to improve?